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FNC managed to take over the world, mostly by seizing 85% I.S. related facilities spread across the globe. This never actually translates into curbstomp battle, but if world military even serious on squashing them, the winning cost, money and lives wise, will be ridiculously unacceptable.

Then a quick reason might be not to attract too much attention. Fortress class IS prolly don't come cheap and sortieing one would be an extremely major move. If PT launched a fortress class IS then that implies a major investment in resources. It may lead to a moment of weakness on their defense that Tabane and the aliens can wreak havoc on or it might upset some sort of balance and force each faction to play their hand.

Yeah, that's the only justification given. The protagonist is have their units numbered in a little over 100 (+100 or so spread across the world), compare to 1500+ that of PT and even beyond that for Tabane.

On the other hand, the protagonist occupy entire Australia for themselves, abundance of exotic materials allow them to go overboard with their tech (even those that considered 'conventional'). As Saruyama put it "Australian shit rare metals"

Of course, this itself cause a problem when FNC portray themselves as "Noble Extremist" that fought both Tabane and Aliens, and the Protagonist have the "Terrorist vs Freedom Fighter" Dilemma. Well, until Autumn slip a little anyway.....

How odd is it to suddenly see a formation of fighter jets flying across sky?

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"You cannot be bad at watching a movie. You cannot be bad at listening to an album.
...But you can be bad at playing a videogame, and the game will punish you and deny you access to the rest of the videogame."

Ranko Hata is an ordinary freelancer, with journalism as her specialty, well, with ordinary job on the surface at least, less said about her shadier job, the better.

However, what she saw currently is nothing but magnificent. brass-colored, shuttle-shaped flying unit danced around the hail of bullets delivered from below at supersonic velocity, with abnormal maneuverability surpassing that of Generation 5 Jet fighters.

Few projectiles that made a contact doesn't seems to do much either, the unit shrug it like a fully-enclosed Tank hoarding through infantry machinegun fire. This doesn't seems too impressive, until one remember each of those fairly small bullets packing a Megajoule worth of impact, able to pierce through two inch solidified steel plate like paper -enough to shatter I.S. energy barrier given sufficient barrage.

It's about the size of medium jet fighter, but clearly isn't one. It's durability and nimbleness clearly scream it's either an alien vessel... or an oversized I.S. unit of sort, even if it isn't vaguely humanoid in the slightest.

Her shutter snapped and she clenched in satisfaction as she managed to capture the scene from outside RoE, even if it's still within the battlefield.

Four aerial-type I.S. flank it and quickly launched their heavier ordnance, missile launcher. They are truly desperate, since those missiles are clearly not hypersonic capable, a close-range missile with big impact force, hoping that it would stop the behemoth on its tracks.

Six fins -two above and below, one on each sides- extended as the vessel slow down considerably to below supersonic velocity, reminiscent of an angry hedgehog desperately trying to ram their attacker. After a brief moment of tenseness, missiles aimed at it vaporized mid air with a very faint but blindingly beautiful scarlet flash.

With sufficiently detailed recording such as form ultra-precise spy satellite, one may found that those guided munitions partially melt and then shredded by the resulting turbulence, tumbling around midair before breaking apart.

Human eyes, at least normal one, won't be able to see that process however. Hata only expect that to happen based on her past knowledge as former I.S.A. student, where she learn to a certain degree, about how weapon works, and how they aren't.

Images from ten years ago began to invade Hata's mind for a few second, when a silvery white figure soaring through the sky and lit 2000+ ballistic missile with exactly the same method. Missile ain't the most durable object around after all.

"The conflict... it's even worse than before" she mumbled as she switched to camcorder, not wasting a single second of this scene "White Knight has NOTHING on this conflict" she mumbled as dozens of I.S. scrambled from nearby bases, tired of shooting from below without any meaningful result.

With few of them enough to start a war, Hata is expecting an overkill as answer by the FNC stationed within this region...

At least until the unit seemingly scrambled six escort from it's own frame as response, each and every of them is clearly an I.S.

I think I'm gonna pull TLR Stratos AGAIN and rewrite it into more like something out of Ace Combat instead, with the above as prologue.

Ummm... so yeah, that was when Rito went batshit angry and soloing Neo-Nazis in Germany by himself, and when that didn't work, he's carrying his entire harem along with him as well...

(And having Ichika & co. slipped under the chaos to do the actual precision strike)

[Fortress] was the codename given to the mysterious, admittedly ballsy assailant, trying to take the entire Germany I.S. force by itself. It wasn't very large by conventional vehicle standard, but compared to I.S.es, it might as well be one.

It's mere presence not only scream "Shoot me, I'm a big-ass target" but also show the very reason it's so huge and confident, it's defense could very well give a 21st century super-destroyer running on fission power a run for its money, well beyond that of any I.S. (even defense type). For all it's size implies, neither it is a lumbering floating object and any I.S. with below average agility is clearly outmatched.

And for the first time after their global takeover, FNC is afraid.

It wouldn't be a problem if they face it in a battle of attrition, however, the massive attacker done it's job in a guerrilla warfare. Barring its visual appearance and unusual heat output during battle, it's just as stealthy as any I.S., they don't know when and where it will attack.

Hata managed to have a touch with her colleagues somehow, and learned that indeed, those [Fortresses] are deployed by the remnants of I.S. academy force.

One variant assaulted a military harbor directly under the jurisdiction of FNC, while the rest are spared. They have no intention of battling mostly innocent armed forces -which is outmatched in a sense, and never actually supportive with FNC and their actions.

She saw the photo sent by said friend intently, examining as much detail as she could. It's shaped like a cobra, but with fangs reminiscent of a viper, and roughly 40 meters in length. The blue unit is aquatic specialist, apparently. And during the attack, it's literally pulling a giant monster cliche being a sudden, rampaging unstoppable juggernaut, before leaving without trace.

It's been so long since they disappear, why now, after situation calmed down and some people actually don't give a damn about world takeover by shady organization?

The answer is revealed shortly after, FNC reopened several projects that formerly has been banned by United Nations, mostly for being unethical even if the result highly promising, such as human gene manipulation and VT system. The Germany branch is also especially cruel and not adhere to the Law and Custom of warfare during their operation, provoking a massive international riot, and provoking the wrath of I.S.A. force as result.

I.S.A., who currently residing in the southern continent that is Australia, is ready and willing to attack anytime such occurrence happens once again. In the meantime however, they declared a truce and focused on ongoing alien invasion and assault by mysterious unmanned I.S.es

So yeah, I.S.A. mostly avoid conflict until provoked, then all hell break loose.

Sorry brah, I still have them kept in my laptop. Sound up what you need and I'll get to finding the part for ya.

__________________

"You cannot be bad at watching a movie. You cannot be bad at listening to an album.
...But you can be bad at playing a videogame, and the game will punish you and deny you access to the rest of the videogame."

Somewhere in the busy streets of the city of Chiba are the convoy of shuttle buses ferrying the Academy students along the highway towards their intended destination. The trip however, wasn’t as peaceful as some of the students slowly growing restless, squirming in their seats while others are asleep.

Amidst the students that are seated in pairs, Ichika sits at window seat near the back of the bus with Houki seated by his side. While he is relatively calm, Houki appears to be uneasy being in close proximity to him much unlike how childhood friends would normally act when paired up next to each other.

Trading stares between each other, Ichika eventually glues his sights outside the bus while the uneasy Houki slowly grows sleepy. A thought snapped into her mind and she looks to his shoulder.

‘W-What is this feeling…?’

She looks to her side where Lingyin and Cecilia are fast asleep then sighs, looking back to Ichika.

‘No one will notice, right? Even if it’s just for a while… But Ichika might…’

Inching herself closer to him, Houki clears her throat to catch his attention but to no avail, much to her disappointment.

“Umm… Ichika?”

No reply came, igniting a spark of annoyance as she narrows her eyes.

“Ichika…?”

Once again, her prompt was not met with a reply. She leans forward and realizes that he’s also asleep with his head tilted and resting against the window.

‘He’s asleep…? This is my chance! If I lay down slowly he shouldn’t feel anything…!’

__________________

"You cannot be bad at watching a movie. You cannot be bad at listening to an album.
...But you can be bad at playing a videogame, and the game will punish you and deny you access to the rest of the videogame."